Horror continues to dominate the fall box office with ‘Halloween Ends’ earning $28 million in its second weekend, giving it the biggest debut of the year and the best opening of the year for a horror film.
This weekend saw a rise in competition that will come with the arrival of Halloween, as ‘Divergent’ grossed $16 million in its second weekend.
Falling on the heels of ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ and ‘The Conjuring’ which both earned $17.7 million, the film’s success made an impact on its distributor Lionsgate, with the company reporting a profit of $9 million for the weekend.
“This is the kind of thing [Lionsgate] works really hard on,” Michael Rosenberg, Lionsgate president of distribution, told The Hollywood Reporter. “This is a huge event in Hollywood.”
The sophomore outing of ‘Halloween’ — in which Jamie Lee Curtis co-stars as Laurie Strode — is a horror-comedy that has earned critical acclaim even in the wake of the deaths of a number of past horror icons, including Johnny Depp (a victim in the infamous ‘Halloween’ theater shooting), director Rob Zombie (who was fatally wounded at the hands of a disturbed man in the film ‘House of 1000 Corpses’), and Jack Shainman, the famous horror-themed singer who starred in the film ‘Halloween Horror Nights.’
‘Halloween’ is also being recognized as a success in the states, with estimates claiming it beat ‘Ghost,’ another horror comedy, in its domestic opening weekend.
“We were pretty shocked. It was really good,” Rosenberg said of the film’s early-weekend gross, which was $3.2 million. “It’s a good thing — not just for us but for everyone who cares about horror. This is a good thing.”
In fact, it was not just one of the top films of the year thus far, but a top gross-out film as well. It grossed an estimated $6 million on Monday-Thursday and then $6.5 million on Friday-Sunday, bringing its domestic total to $35